Fiber optic cable is usually installed under ground either in conduit that has previously been installed or directly buried by means of plows or trenching equipment. In either case, it is quite often necessary to unspool thousands of feet of cable off the supply reel so that the cable can be fed through a conduit under roadways, utilities, etc. To date, this unspooling of cable into a temporary storage pile has been performed by hand labor which hand loops the cable in a figure eight pattern so as to prevent twisting and kinking of the cable in the storage operation. This manual figure eighting of the cable is not only very tiring to the crew, it is very time-consuming and may subject the cable to physical damage by workers stepping on the cable. As physical splices of fiber optic cable are very expensive, the trend is to supply longer and longer lengths of cable, therefore making the method and speed of figure eighting even more important than in the past.
The requirement that the fiber optic cable be manually "figure eighted" requires additional manpower and therefore increases the cost of installing the fiber optic cable.
It is therefore a principal object of the invention to provide a means for mechanically figure eighting and thus preventing the twisting of a fiber optic cable.
A further object of the invention is to provide a means for mechanically figure eighting fiber optic cable.
A further object of the invention is to provide a means for mechanically figure eighting fiber optic cable which is easily adjustable and which is convenient to use.
It is also a principal object of the invention to provide a means for the mechanical figure eighting of the cable at a speed much faster than can be done manually and with much less manpower.
A further object of the invention is to provide a means for figure eighting a cable so that the cable will not be damaged by twists as would be the case if the cable were stored in continuous circles.
These and other objects will be apparent to those skilled in the art.